Year of the Pig

In the last post I mention the most powerful influence you have on your market -- what you say about what you do.

Then I point out that jargon befuddles us while talking plain and simple gets your ideas across.

In this post let’s explore how to apply these notions to market yourself as an alternative practitioner. How you can powerfully influence your market by plain and simple talk about what you do. It works for all kinds of businesses.

Michael M., my acupuncturist friend, mentions this is the ‘Year of the Pig’ in the Chinese calendar. That’s too juicy for a professional smartass like me to pass up.

I comment –

“Should I be worried about this? How did the pigs in China get a whole year named after them?”

Michael responds –

“Pigs are good. It represents you have some money and means. And since the Chinese love to eat pork, pigs are seen as great animals to have around. Of course, they make fun of pigs too. If you have a girl calling you a "stupid pig" it is a good day, because it means she really likes you.”

Hmmm. This will take some getting used to. American women usually think pigs are disgusting, dirty, ill mannered, etc., and calling someone a pig here is a serious insult. But a bachelor, who sees Chinese women as exotic, needs to know how good it is to be a pig.

Michael translates a different kind of pig idea that is foreign to me into terms I immediately understand. Not surprising, since in addition to Chinese Medicine, Michael professionally translates medical texts between Chinese and English. He’s fluent and articulate in both languages.

He’s a translator. That’s good for the medicine business as well.

What does a Chinese Medicine doctor say to a patient who asks him --

“How does acupuncture work?”

(No, this is not the lead line to a joke.)

What the patient is asking for is a translation. They’re not asking for a lecture about something they don’t understand, in terms they don’t know.

This is a critical moment when the practitioner can make or break the patient relationship by his response.

He can launch into a highly theoretical and detailed classroom style discourse about ‘how it works’ based on what he learned in China.

Or he can sensitively explain matters in plain and simple terms that are easy for a mainstream American to grasp.

Let’s say he takes the first approach. He goes on much too long, using words and concepts the patient can’t possibly know, and therefore can’t trust. He misses the point where their eyes glaze over. He goes on further, until satisfied his explaination passes any exam given by his mentors and impresses the pants off his peers.

The secondary gain is huge for his ego. He’s enjoying that so much he misses how he lost the challenge to convey meaning to his patient while he was busy winning the battle going on in his own mind.

Beware the ego. It’s a very poor business person.

Now let’s say he takes the second approach. He delivers a short, plain and simple explaination in terms a mainstream American can easily grasp –

“Chinese medicine manages the life force that flows within the body. We find places where life force gets stuck or misrouted, and we get it moving or re-direct it into healthy paths.”

Or something like that. I’m out on a limb here, since I don’t know what I’m talking about with respect to Chinese medicine. I’m totally ignorant of it, in fact.

But I recognize a plain and simple response when I hear one.

The patient at that point has enough information to feel comfortable, and the treatment continues. Or maybe the patient needs more information, and asks

“How am I supposed to know what herbs I should take?”

Let’s say the doctor hasn’t thought about this in advance and doesn’t have a ready answer. So he interprets the question as a challenge, and gives some defensive response. He feels better but he loses the patient, who was befuddled and just needed some re-framing of his mindset.

Again, the ego is a very poor business person that’s too self involved to tend to the mind of your market.

Now let’s say the doctor has thought about this question in advance. In fact, he has compiled a whole list of questions that patients typically ask. And he has carefully formulated plain and simple answers to them all.

His response becomes –

“In Chinese Medicine, the doctor advises you what herbs you need from his pharmacy. It’s part of the service, so you don’t have to study up and become an expert.”

Thus he translates an objection into a powerful benefit. Sometimes what you say about what you do is translation. The doctor’s tending the mind of his market like a garden. He creates and maintains a Chinese Medicine FAQ, adding new answers as new questions come up.

More on plain and simple statements to influence your market, in the next post. I’ll show how to use this powerful concept to create your verbal branding.

Give this a try. Create one plain and simple answer that translates something you do into terms your customer can easily understand. Test it on a real customer. Think about the results. Decide whether you benefit from having a full FAQ. Act on your decision.

I offer a translation service on my web site called “Translation to American.”

Gotta go now. Pig practice. On being a real pig. A real stupid one.

In case I meet a hot Chinese woman.

What's a Babel Fish?

What you say about what you do is your main influence.

Michael M. and I have a dialog going. He studied long and hard and earned the right to put L.Ac after his name. He has a clinic and patient flow. We discuss how to market Chinese Medicine.

Michael says, “For the most part, acupuncturists see themselves as ‘alternative people treating an alternative crowd.’ ”

He emails --

“I am madly passionate about demystifying Chinese medicine, and making it accessible to the wider mainstream population in a way that does not require them to either believe it or understand it. Simply use it for the kinds of healing and wellness it can bring.”

My answer --

“Succeed, and you’ll crack an important code. Lots of Chinese Medicine people need this.”

When I consider demystification more deeply, I realize how relevant it is.

You talk acupuncture lingo to the mainstream. Your jargon sounds like some new-agey voodoo with sinister rituals, dolls, and hat pins. They look at you like you just waved a chicken foot and cursed them with mumbo jumbo. You feel like pouting.

Different scenario. You know your mainstream client’s mind enough to connect with it directly. You use native terminology there. You are easily heard and understood. You use accepted esoteric jargon to address fringe alternative markets. But for the mainstream, plain talk works.

Simple is good. Simpler is better. Too simple, though, is too much of a good thing.

This is not just about acupuncture. It’s the way of the world.

A busy massage therapist sells services to the mainstream. She talks about health benefits that everyday people can relate to. They happily occupy her portable massage chair in public places, pay the fee gratefully, walk away grinning, and send their family.

Everyone is in some level of discomfort. She has learned people really want help with this. But they don’t want to learn a new foreign language to decide whether to spend 15 bucks for a rub.

Circulation, yes. Meridians, no. De-stressing? That works. But chakras are over the top. Starry-eyed references to “energy” went away right after massage school.

Massage talk was a deal killer.

She makes her business popular by asking herself --

“Will it fly in the mall?”

What you say about what you do is your main influence.

Don’t freak out, now. Don’t purge the very concepts you normally think in, or stifle terms when you talk with your colleagues. Or banish words that even some of your clients use.

You just sell more easily when sensitive to perspectives. When you develop a chameleon-like ability to adapt language to the mindset you’re conversing with.

It works better to address your market using language they use. For some it may be esoteric terminologies. For others, it needs to be very ordinary words. Don’t expect them to figure out what you’re saying or study your glossary. They won’t. And you’ll lose business.

If your market is primarily fringey then go with their jargon. If you’re addressing a techie crowd about their gizmo, you have to match context. Geeky folks are all wrapped up in features, and you get “in” by demonstrating their perspective.

So speak geek, then. And be convincing. Half-hearted efforts show you as a pretender. This goes for any enthusiast crowd.

I’m reminding you of things you already know. How is it for you when someone talks to you in jargon you don’t understand? If someone who is befuddling you with gobbledygook suddenly switches to terms you get, it’s like plugging in a Babel Fish.

“Plugging in a what?” you say.

Oh, sorry. You don’t grok Babel Fish. . .

Douglas Adams enabled characters from all around the Universe to converse, in “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,” when he invented the Babel Fish character.

Didn’t everyone read that book?

You know. Stick a Babel Fish in your ear. It translates all. Then you hear every word, no matter how many parsecs you are from home, as if spoken in your native tongue.

Um, you don’t understand “grok,” either? And “what’s a parsec?”

Jeez, do I have to explain everything to you? You really should read more science fiction. . .

Uh-oh. You think science fiction is for fringy people so you don’t trust me? Now I feel like pouting.

OK, I’m done teasing. Because I’m getting tired of explaining everything I say.

Let’s de-mystify what I do. That’s ‘marcom,’ or marketing communications.

(Pant pant.)

It takes believable messages to make business thrive. It works to get a handle on the conversations that are already going on in your market’s mind, and then enter them, as a good conversationalist. That means adopting terminology all parties in the conversation already understand.

Then you focus on message, not on bits of meaning. You know the mind of your market and speak to it.

You don’t leave yourself pouting.

Because what you say about what you do is your main influence.

Michael M. says he likes my demystification article about meditation –

“It both speaks your personal experience without evangelizing, and invites me the reader to consider the benefits it would bring to my life. . . I need a piece like this for acupuncture.

I noticed the confidence of voice, and that to me is where the power comes from.”

You can read this article on my main web site, in the Portfolio – “Meditation Demystified.”

Why The Subtitle?

I decide to start a blog. I visualize my clients all in one room with me. That's where we are right now, you and I. I'm speaking with everyone I work with, or who I want to work with. It's a special room, where anyone can ask a question or make a comment. I have space to reflect and respond thoughtfully.

This is a nice ride.

I know you pretty well from working with you. Or I have some sense of you from working with others like you. What you hear in this room is all about communication between your business and the rest of the world. That's what brings us together, you and I.

Some call what I do marketing communications. I'm your business communicator. Close as your cell phone, ready as a trusted reference book, stoked with useful business and writing knowledge, eager to help you succeed.

I break a mold or two every day before breakfast.

So you get fresh thinking about marketing your business in the post-modern world, where the clients are jaded and the field is crowded but we're up to it, you and I. No matter how short the attention spans.

You have uses for powerful influence and effective persuasion. So, I wonder what I want to say to you first and there's no hesitation --

"The money' s in your message."

To be explicit with an example, take your web site. Now imagine it with all the great graphics and highly usable structure and navigation intact. Jeez, it's beautiful. But the words are gone. Blank. Empty space where once there were words.

You have good SEO so Google is crankin' your URL to lots of surfers. Your ads are relevant, so click throughs are incoming. And when the visitors arrive, they're impressed by fabulous graphics and the great navigation scheme. They oooh and ahhh.

But there are no words to read.

Nobody buys anything or gets in touch. Because the money's in your message.

Next scene -- your site with words. All the spaces where words should be, empty before, now filled. But these words don't connect your client's real needs and wants and dreams and desires, to what you offer. The writing is about your company, your people, and your products, and they're good words. They carry a lot of information. But these words don't SELL.

Nobody buys anything or gets in touch. Because the money's in your message.

OK, take out all that informational copy now. Clean the slate.

Put in words I write for you. Words that make a bridge between your customer's needs and wants, dreams and desires, and how your business fulfills them. They're persuasive and influential words, ones that grab their attention, draw them in, keep them interested, make them hungry for what you have, and invite them over to get some.

People read this copy and start calling, emailing, and buying your stuff like inlaws answering the dinner bell on Thanksgiving.

Because the money's in your message.

Hence the subtitle of this blog. So you and I stay focused on what matters, what really brings in the cash.

Keep coming back. I'll share what I know will help you succeed. And it won't always be this much about me selling me to you.

Glad you stopped by.

Joseph Riden, Writer
www.jriden.com